


seems so long ago

by blindbatalex



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Boston Bruins, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 22:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20919848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: He was going to tell Brad where it came from, but when Brad opened the door that first time, his eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead, and he asked happily whether Patrice made him soup.  It had been too easy, far too easy, to say yes.Brad gets the flu and Patrice procures him some chicken soup.





	seems so long ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romanvacation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanvacation/gifts).

> I love your writing, so just a little something of a gift!
> 
> it's not a direct inspiration but unofficial soundtrack - [seems so long ago, nancy | leonard cohen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gQZUUHULco)

Brad is drinking his soup way too fast. 

Patrice has the short end of the straw when it comes to injuries and Brad, when it comes to the flu. It always hits him hard, at least once a year. He runs a temperature and feels miserable for days. 

Overcast skies filter in blue-gray from the kitchen windows. Brad’s skin is clammy and there are dark circles under his eyes; he looks like death warmed over in the half-light, and the spoon goes from the bowl to Brad’s lips and then to the bowl and back again, almost too quickly for the human eye to track. The only sound in the kitchen is his slurping and sniffling. 

When Patrice rung the doorbell with a Tupperware container in hand he wasn’t sure of his welcome. 

They have been able to keep things professional on the ice, haven’t lost too much of their chemistry, but that’s been pretty much it. They said—Patrice said—they were going to be friends when he broke things off with Brad, but, it hurts too much. When they hang out off the ice, silence hangs heavy between them, thick like smoke, thick like a shroud, and when they speak their words stumble, insincere now and inadequate.

But Brad always gets hit hard with the flu, and he is sick, and what else was Patrice supposed to do? What else could he do?

So he picked up the soup and rung the doorbell and when Brad answered told him, the way he has told him a hundred times before, that he made soup.

“You know,” he says now, and the words pierce the silence, too loud. It’s time he came clean. “I have never made this soup myself. I am uh, friends with a chef, and I ask him to make it for me.”

They were on the road once and Brad fainted on him when he stood up too quickly. He was murmuring about wanting soup when he came to. Patrice let him fall asleep in the ER and called the head-chef at the restaurant he had gone to last week. The head-chef had introduced himself when he heard Patrice was there, given him his card in case Patrice needed anything, and now Patrice needed soup. Ready, when they got back to Boston.

He was going to tell Brad where it came from, but when Brad opened the door that first time, his eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead, and he asked happily whether Patrice made him soup. It had been too easy, far too easy, to say yes.

Brad’s eyes flick to him from the bowl and he stops eating only for long enough to get the words out. 

“I know.”

“How? Since when?” Patrice asks quickly, before he can stop himself. That is news to him.

Brad chuckles quietly, and doesn’t look up this time.

“No offense Bergy but this is the best chicken soup I've ever had and you burn bacon. Eating your breakfasts in bed was a labor of love. There is no way you could make this.”

“But you loved it when I made you breakfast in bed.”

Yes, sometimes the bacon would turn out on the crispier side but Brad did this thing- He would smile when Patrice walked into the bedroom with a tray in hand, only a little at first, but as he woke up it would slowly widen until it reached all the way to his eyes in the end. He would give Patrice a kiss, palm stretched out on Patrice’s back and say ‘what have I done to deserve you?’ and Patrice’s heart would sing.

“I loved _you_-” Brad says now and the words suck the air out of the room, take them both by surprise.

_I love you but only as a friend_, Patrice had said, because Sweeney had found out, because Sweeney had told him there was no way it was going to fly, and he wanted to be kind, kinder to Brad than that.

“You looked more proud making me breakfast in bed than scoring playoff goals. Waking up to that--I didn’t mind the burnt bacon and the soggy pancakes.”

“My pancakes were _not_ soggy,” Patrice laughs because if he doesn’t he might-

Brad chuckles too and for a brief moment, in the dying light in his kitchen, his smile has a glimmer of his old self. Of their old life.

He shakes his head.

“No.” 

*

As he is leaving Patrice catches a peek of Brad’s couch from behind the half-closed living room door.

He would sit there on one edge and Brad would use his lap as his pillow when he was sick. Patrice would run his fingers through his hair as Brad dozed off and he would talk to Brad, softly. Brad gets restless in his sleep when he has a temperature, and talking to him seemed to calm him down. 

And so Patrice would run his fingers through Brad’s hair and whisper how much he loved him. He would tell Brad tales from his childhood, murmur about the life he wanted to build together with him. Always in French because Brad didn’t speak French. Because some things, you can only say in the half-light and with no one there to hear.

“You shouldn’t,” he says now, “you shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

There should be someone looking over him, in case his fever spikes, in case he passes out again.

Brad tells him that he won’t be. Patrice waits for the part where Brad will say ‘I blackmailed Torey into coming over,’ or ‘Pasta offered to stay the night,’ but it never comes. He considers coming clean about Sweeney too, about what happened, warn him. Wonders if it would change anything, make a difference. Wonders who it is coming over.

*

“Thank you,” Brad says, when they are at the door and Patrice has put on his coat.

Patrice nods. 

He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he reaches his car.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading friends. Comments are what keep me going as a writer, so please drop me a line below if you liked the story. You can also find me @blindbatalex on tumblr (and prompts and asks are always welcome!)
> 
> Also remember that time I was prompted to write a sickfic, and I knew the recipient wanted something soft, so I wrote something soft but I said, y'all have no idea of the angst I could have unleashed with this prompt--this was my original idea.


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